The ‘Lost Farms’ consist of nearly 50 farm ruins, all traditional stone longhouses, originally built in the 17th and 18th centuries on Brinscall Moor. Coppice Stile is on the path up to Great Hill.
Then
Now
The bricked up wall gap at Coppice Stile.
Coppice Stile was a small 5 acre farm with only three fields. The house had three bays, one of which was the domestic or family end while the rest formed the barn and shippon. So the family shown here had just one ground floor living room and one bedroom above it.
The farm was probably in ruins by 1920.
If you look carefully you can find a stone trough or sink in the ground and see the bricked up original gate entrance in the boundary wall.
Listen to interviews
Just over wall a few metres to the right (if you’re facing Great Hill) is the now blocked previous gateway that gave the farm its name. Coppice Stile was a longhouse of 3 sections – one for the house at western end and 2 for barn and shippon. The whole thing is 17m by 6m.
In the one photo we have of Coppice stile you can see it was white washed but there was no guttering. They would have burned peat cut from the moors, which you can see in the barrow in the photo.
Thank you to Carnegie Publishing for permission to use the photos from David Clayton’s book ‘The Lost Farms of Brinscall Moors’
The stone trough at Coppice Stile.
This project was largely inspired by David Clayton’s book, ‘The Lost Farms of Brinscall Moors’, which is available from Carnegie Publishing: https://www.carnegiepublishing.co.uk/product/lost-farms-of-brinscall-moors/
The book contains a wealth of information on all the farms which has not been covered here, as we have focused on the farms for which we could find oral histories. If you would like to find out more, please do buy a copy of the book!
BBC – Countryfile season 23 episode 5, first aired 12th April 2012
Thank you to Carnegie publishing for permission to use photographs from David Clayton’s book, ‘The Lost Farms of Brinscall Moors’ and to Jed, creator of the www.white-coppice.co.uk pages who took many of the photos of the farms in modern times and to the many people who shared memories and photos. In particular Barbara Butler (Richard Robinson’s granddaughter), David Fairclough (who has compiled an extensive collection of historic photos) and Linda Fonseka (descendent of Elizabeth Dixon).
